Helping Asia's victims

Six days since the Indian Ocean tsunami did its deadly work, the world is still struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of a disaster that is now known to have killed 123,000 people - 23,000 more than yesterday's worst estimate - and ruined or blighted the lives of millions more. Charity begins at home, so it is heartening that individuals in Britain have already donated a record £30m, mostly channelled through the Disasters Emergency Committee. The Christmas spirit is alive and generous.

It is encouraging, too, that the government has now upped its original, widely criticised, contribution of just £15m to a heftier £50m - though it is worth remembering that it has spent an estimated £6bn on the war on Iraq. Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, has pointed out that the key is turning cash into practical help on the ground in Asia. But the amount of money matters hugely both for short-term emergency aid - providing food, shelter, clean water and preventing disease - and the longer haul of rebuilding shattered communities and infrastructure for years after the TV cameras have left. Perhaps Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief, was deliberately provocative by castigating "stingy" official responses, including what the New York Times yes terday dismissed as a "miserly" US government aid pledge.

Some have argued that natural disasters produce greater generosity than ones that can be at least partially attributed to human failings such as war, unfair trade or corruption. The fact that no one can be blamed for an unstoppable wall of water sent surging by the grinding of subterranean tectonic plates may explain why there has been relatively little finger-pointing, for example about the absence of a Pacific-style tsunami warning system that could have saved thousands of lives. But perhaps the brutal answer to an impressive display of empathy and charity is that wealthy westerners only really notice distant disasters when wealthy westerners are themselves caught up in them.

Even Voltaire's irrepressibly optimistic Candide, inspired by the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755, would have been hard-pressed to find good in a tragedy of these dimensions. But any reinforcement of that elusive sense of common humanity and solidarity would be welcome. So would a sustained effort of giving beyond this darkened festive season and its indulgences, to help ease the pain of countless ravaged families and orphaned children who are half a world away, but for a brief moment feel closer to us all.